Chemical Engineering

Maohong Fan

Dr. Fan has led and worked on many projects in the areas of chemical production, clean energy generation and environmental protection, which have been supported by various domestic and international funding agencies such as NSF, DOE and EPA, USGS and USDA in the US, New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in Japan, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and industrial companies such as Siemens and Caterpillar. He has helped various chemical, environmental and energy companies to overcome their technical challenges. He has published over 175 refereed books, book chapters, and papers in different chemical and environmental engineering, energy, and chemistry journals. As an Associate Editor or Editorial Board Member or Advisory Board Member, he has been serving several international chemical and energy as well as environmental journals. He has been supporting and supervising a number of graduate students and postdocs as well as research scientists in his research areas.

Integrating multiple methods and processes including (homogenous, heterogeneous and photo as well as bio) catalysis and separation with sorption and membrane as well as chemical looping pathway for conversion of fossil resources including coal, oil and gases, and renewable resources into value-added chemicals/materials (such as carbon fiber and carbide) and clean fuels

Developing new materials (e.g., ionic liquids and nanostructure as well as magnetic materials especially catalysts) for clean energy production with conventional and unconventional technologies such as supercritical fluids and advanced crystallization as well as chemical vapor deposition

Understanding the reaction kinetics and mechanisms associated with generation of chemicals (including petrochemicals) and energy through various theoretical and experimental methods including computation chemistry

Recovering value-added and/or critical materials such as rare earth elements and lithium from coal/coal-utilization-by-products and produced water

As a PI or Co-PI, he has many projects in the areas of chemical and energy generation as well as environmental protection, which have been supported by domestic and international funding agencies such as NSF, DOE, EPA, USGS and USDA in the U.S., New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in Japan, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and industrial companies such as Siemens and Caterpillar. He has helped various chemical, environmental and energy companies to overcome their technical challenges. His NSF projects in recent years are in the areas of solar catalytic chemical looping based biomass refinery, simultaneous and low-emission utilization of coal and biomass, and application of nanotechnologies in energy production and environmental protection. Moreover, his recent DOE projects cover the areas of mercury removal, CO2 capture, rare earth extraction, carbon fuel cells, production of chemicals/fuels and hydrogen from ethane, catalytic production of near-zero-CH4 syngas, and catalytic ethylene glycol synthesis.

Publications

He has published his research results in various refereed books, book chapters, and journal papers in different chemical and environmental engineering, energy, and chemistry journals such as Nature Communications. The statistics of his publications is given at: